Return-Path: jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu
Delivery-Date: Sun Oct 19 19:32:13 2003
Received: from elvis.arl.psu.edu ([146.186.165.126]:35879 "EHLO
elvis.arl.psu.edu") by elvis.arl.psu.edu with ESMTP
id <S6996AbTJSXcA>; Sun, 19 Oct 2003 19:32:00 -0400
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.5 07/16/2001 with nmh-1.0.4
X-uri: <URL:http://www.cse.psu.edu/~groenvel/>
To: Curtis Sasaki <Curtis.Sasaki@sun.com>
cc: jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu, solarisonintel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: desktop
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 19 Oct 2003 11:53:33 PDT."
<89BDB3CC-0265-11D8-A79C-0003939BCBDE@sun.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 19:31:18 -0400
From: John D Groenveld <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu>
Message-Id: <20031019233209Z6996-795+123@elvis.arl.psu.edu>
Return-Path: <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu>
X-Envelope-To: <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu> (uid 60001)
X-Orcpt: rfc822;jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu
In message <89BDB3CC-0265-11D8-A79C-0003939BCBDE@sun.com>, Curtis Sasaki writes
:
>we are doing the best we can under the tight budget constraints. i
I'm a stockholder, before customer and entirely sympathetic that Sun
needs to keep within budget constraints. I can appreciate that putting
Solaris x86 back on the StarOffice release train is not a zero cost
proposition.
>know everyone wants more faster, and we sometimes expect heroics out of
>our engineers. we are planning StarOffice 7 for Solaris x86. Just
Sun's engineers are amazing, thats why I remain bullish on SUNW.
I'm glad to read that you're planning SO7 for Sx86.
>keep in mind that that is a retail product and has some different
>features. sun built the openoffice.org version for now so folks like
>you can use the latest version. productization into a retail version
I appreciate your efforts on behalf of Phil Brown and other Solaris x86
community members to get the OpenOffice version online and more prominently
displayed on the openoffice.org's website.
I also appreciate that the process of performing OpenOffice builds is
key to the productization of StarOffice.
>will take longer and as soon as the product team gives a date, you will
>know.
Assuming that it will take the StarOffice product manager some time
to provide you with an estimated ship date, would in the meantime you ask
him or her to add a general statement to the product web pages that a
future update StarOffice 7 will include Solaris x86 support and that
a projected ship date will be forthcoming?
>my team has a lot of deliverables on the plate and are working as hard
>as possible. we haven't gotten any added resources to work on more
>releases or products, so please be mindful when criticizing us. we are
>doing our best and frankly I'd rather get the rest of Sun also to help
>us more.
Again, I appreciate that your group has limited resources. However, you
should understand that while at one time customers would feel confident
that Sun would never end support for a product without providing
advance notice, the Solaris x86 example of last year has caused us to
reasonably fear that Sun's non-response to our feedback up to now
meant that Sun had decided to abandon us yet again.
Its unfortunate that up to now Sun has failed to communicate to its
customers that the delayed StarOffice 6 updates for Solaris x86 last year,
missing Solaris x86 betas this spring, and finally the non-existent binary
in the released StarOffice 7 media kit this Wednesday was not the result
of our requests via established channels being lost or ignored between
departments ... or worse because of some internal political squabble
about the value of Solaris x86 or whether Solaris x86 is a valid desktop
solution, but because of difficult budget decisions.
Had you replied to my letter to you of May 23rd, I would have passed
that message on to the rest of the community and I think you could have
eased those concerns.
I hope Mr Schwartz and Mr McNealy will provide you with the additional
resources you need to get Solaris x86 back on the StarOffice release
train, as well as to allow you to provide Solaris x86 support for
the other Java Desktop System components.
Perhaps echoing Sun's own existing survey data reflecting customer demand
for more Solaris desktop systems, I suppose its time that the community
send a letter to Mr Schwartz asking that JDS for Solaris x86 be placed
on the fast track.
Can you confirm with Mr Schwartz that such a letter will be read and
acknowledged?
>thanks for your comments. I do take them seriously. let's try to stay
>in dialog. we are moving to have a common release cycle with the
>Solaris teams which will ease the release cycles for all of us.
I appreciate your commitment to maintain a dialog.
I also can't recommend enough that you or a subordinate interface with the
Secret Six, Solaris monthly conference call invitees, Solaris customer
council or whatever name Sun has for our Solaris customer representatives.
I think they're a very reasonable group of customers and are respected
by their peers.
For instance, one idea bounced around the Solaris x86 mailing list
and recently brought up again by a community representative is to
place evaluation copies of Solaris x86 in StarOffice media kits.
That may not be feasible in ways that the customer community can't see,
but it is clear to me that more cooperation and collaboration is
needed between the different Software units.
Would Mr Schwartz be the appropriate person to send those suggestions
or is it your understanding that managers in the Solaris unit tasked
to interface with the customer community can pass that feedback up
to yourself and the other members of Mr Schwartz's VP team?
Thank you,
John
groenveld@acm.org
|